First Mediator, Then Decision Maker

IRVING, Tex. — Stephen Jones chuckles at the memory of being a mediator between his father, Jerry Jones, the Cowboys’ owner, and Bill Parcells, the headstrong former coach.

“It was tough, tough, tough,” said Stephen Jones, the No. 2 executive in the Dallas front office. “But it was worth it.”

Jones said it helped shape him into what he is today, the person perceived by some to be calling the shots for the Cowboys as the team’s chief operating officer, executive vice president and director of player personnel.

The Cowboys have picked foundation over flash in recent drafts and decided not to stress the salary cap with a big contract for DeMarco Murray after he led the N.F.L. in rushing. Stephen Jones was a key part of in those decisions.

Jones, 50, said he believed little had changed in the 26 years that Jerry Jones had been the owner, general manager and ultimate arbiter of the Cowboys, for better or worse. But he did not completely dismiss the notion of an evolving philosophy.

“I think probably the biggest way things have changed is that he probably has more confidence in me,” he said, referring to his father. “Although he might not want to say that he didn’t have confidence in me 20 years ago, because I think he did. I think he listened to me a lot. But did he listen as much? Maybe not.”

The younger Jones was a 24-year-old chemical engineering graduate of the University of Arkansas, where both he and his father had played football, when Jerry Jones bought the Cowboys in 1989, fired Coach Tom Landry and brought attention to a family that had quietly made its fortune in oil and gas.

Admittedly “green behind the ears” as he found himself making decisions alongside Jimmy Johnson, who became the coach in 1989, Stephen Jones was confident in his football background. Looking back, Jones said he figured a healthy part of his growth came in the four years Parcells was with the Cowboys, from 2003 to 2006. Jones’s flamboyant father and Parcells, a Super Bowl-winning coach who had clashed with front offices on personnel issues elsewhere, did not want any “confrontational disagreement,” as the younger Jones put it. So he got to play middleman.

“It helped me in a lot of ways,” Jones said. “Because I had to have some real heated, heated visits with both Jerry and Bill.”

And he was not afraid of them, said Jeff Ireland, who was then the Cowboys’ director of scouting. Ireland said he remembered that the Cowboys had decided to do something different in the draft room and needed to tell Parcells, who Stephen Jones said was the architect of several changes that made Dallas better.

“Stephen didn’t wait for his dad,” Ireland said. “He said, ‘Hey, look, Jeff, we’re going to go and do this, and it’s not going to be a real happy time for us.’ He knows how to handle people. And he knows how to do it without disrespecting them, either.”

Jones said his father still had the final decision. That was the case last year when Jerry Jones resisted his headline-grabbing urge during the draft and passed on Johnny Manziel for Zack Martin, a quiet workhorse offensive lineman who became the club’s first rookie All-Pro since Calvin Hill in 1969.

The more relevant draft-room drama, Stephen Jones said, is the buildup to each pick. Jones has tried to make his voice heard when his father grows anxious about moving up.

“It’s a little fun dynamic in there when he and I are visiting,” Stephen Jones said, smiling. “But he’s a good listener. And I mean he listens more.”

Jerry Jones said as much before this year’s draft, when the Cowboys pushed aside their needs at running back and chose Connecticut cornerback Byron Jones in the first round.

“Bottom line, without getting into it a lot, Stephen has absolute, tremendous influence on these decisions that are ultimately made in this organization and everything we do,” Jerry Jones said, also noting the input of Coach Jason Garrett.

After winning three Super Bowls in the 1990s, the Cowboys worked to maintain the core of those teams, which had players like Emmitt Smith, and had plenty of draft busts. But Morris Claiborne (2012) is the only first-round pick from 2010 to 2014 who has not made a Pro Bowl. And the Cowboys left this year’s draft feeling as if they had three first-rounders in Byron Jones, defensive end Randy Gregory and lineman La’el Collins.

Stephen Jones believes the Cowboys are benefiting from the continuity of five-plus years with Garrett as coach. They have not had that since Johnson left in a messy split with Jerry Jones after winning a second straight championship in 1993.

Through all the coaching changes, Jerry Jones, 72, had one constant at the top: his son.

“I know he looks and treats the franchise as a legacy,” Stephen Jones said. “The big joy comes in working with him and working as a family.”